If a rich man slips, his helpers are many: The context makes it clear that slips refers not to any kind of mistake, as Good News Translation seems to have it, but to mistakes in what one says. A better rendering here is “When a rich person makes a mistake [or, errs] in his words, many people offer to help him.”

He speaks unseemly words, and they justify him: They refers to his helpers. Unseemly words does not refer to grammatical errors, but to things that may be hurtful to others, or even embarrassing to the speaker later. The rich person speaks casually, and happens to say something unwise. Plenty of people will step in to justify him, to explain to others what he really meant. To “cover up for” (Good News Translation) someone is to try to undo the harm the person has done, to make it appear that nothing wrong was said or done. To “explain away” (Good News Translation) what someone says is to explain someone’s words in a way that makes them sound less harmful. So we may translate the first two lines of this verse as follows: “If a rich person slips and says something he should not, there are many people who will hurry to defend him and make what he said sound good.”

If a humble man slips, they even reproach him: Once again, as in verse 21, there is manuscript authority (although not of the same quality) for reading “poor” instead of humble, and the Handbook suggests that translators follow Good News Translation in reading “poor,” with no footnote. When a poor person makes the same kind of slip as the rich person in the preceding lines, do people rush to his aid? No, far from it, they rush to find fault. The poor person “gets nothing but criticism” (Good News Translation).

He speaks sensibly, and receives no attention: He speaks sensibly is actually a condition, which may be rendered “If he speaks sensibly,” or even “If he speaks wisely.”

An alternative model for this verse is:

• If a rich person mistakenly says something he should not say, many people will hurry to defend him and make what he said sound good. But if a poor person makes a mistake in his words, everyone criticizes him. Even if he has spoken wisely, no one will listen to him.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Sirach. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.